


Nightwing Extreme

by G0REL0RD



Series: Nightwing Extreme [1]
Category: Batman - Fandom, Dick Grayson - Fandom, Nightwing - Fandom, Robin - Fandom
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-16
Updated: 2015-08-16
Packaged: 2018-04-15 00:32:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4586172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/G0REL0RD/pseuds/G0REL0RD
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blüdhaven is overrun by an unprecedented crime wave caused by an ascent to power of a new mysterious crime lord that takes control over the entire city, when a new young vigilante suddenly appears on the horizon, intent upon putting an end to the new kingpin's unlawful reign and also proving to the whole world that he can be an independent hero without anybody else's help. </p>
<p>A small preview of Chapter 1. The whole first installment can be found here: www.fanfiction.net/s/11436814/1/</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nightwing Extreme

Chapter 1: Dark as Night

Life seemed to die away each time the blanket of night would fall upon the city of Blüdhaven. The streets at once became deserted, the people that appeared to have been carelessly walking them in the daylight suddenly starting to nervously hurry back to their homes to lock themselves there until the next day’s morning came. Even those who had no homes to return to knew better than to stay outdoors at such a late hour and would quickly find some deep corners where the veil of darkness could shelter them from the many dangers that the streets of Blüdhaven were filled with at this time. Over the past several years, crime rate in this city had reached critical proportions, and now no one living here could feel completely safe anymore.

For fairness sake, criminal situation in Blüdhaven had never really known good times. Numerous failed attempts on the part of its public authorities to turn this former whaling town into a large manufacturing and shipping center only succeeded in further deteriorating the city’s economic environment, thus creating a huge breeding ground for increase of crime wave. Also, being an overshadowed neighbor to the famous and prominent city of Gotham which was protected by the vigilante Batman and the team of his sidekicks, Blüdhaven had always been some sort of a ‘reserve airfield’ to those criminals that would fail to find their fortune in Gotham. Drug-dealers, mobsters and other criminal elements were eagerly coming to this town, inspired by the absence of any masked heroes to stand in their way here. The local police forces represented little impediment to their ambition because the law enforcement system in Blüdhaven had long since drowned in endemic corruption. Cops were bought by public officials who, in their turn, were bought by members of organized crime syndicates. Of course, it wasn’t that Blüdhaven was completely without any honest policemen or judges. But like in almost every other crime-consumed city, such unlikely individuals were usually the first ones to be shot right in their faces.

Still, even with all those disheartening factors taken into account, there was still no solid explanation for the recent unprecedented outburst of lawlessness in Blüdhaven. If just a couple of years ago Blüdhaven was an ordinary town with high level of crime where it was simply safer not to walk in the streets at night, now this city had begun to turn into a place where it was safer to not live in at all. Drugs were sold on every street corner. Thefts, robberies and burglaries raged all around the town. Innocent citizens were getting murdered every day. Police and justice were corrupted to the core. The very name ‘Blüdhaven’ was slowly turning into a common noun for a pandemonium of crime. The city’s populace was gradually growing extinct with its residents doing everything they could to save enough money and leave this pit of hell and the visitors from other cities and states not even conceding the mere idea of coming to live here. Nobody understood how the state of affairs in Blüdhaven could have taken such a drastic change from simply ‘bad’ to ‘worse than ever’, but at this point, this understanding hardly made any difference anymore. 

Many believed that the recent dramatic debasement of life in Blüdhaven had to do with the rumored overthrow of the city’s former crime lord, Angel Marin. On the face of it, a mob kingpin controlling the entire city getting dethroned at last was supposed to be a good thing. But that was only unless his place was taken by someone far worse than him. Nobody knew the name of this new criminal master to have superseded Marin, but if the recent swing of things in Blüdhaven was any indication, this man was a far bigger of the two evils. Blüdhaven might have always been far from being trouble-free, but never before had the crime in this city been so much out of control. Disregard of the law had become like some cancerous tumor feeding off this city, and at the rate things were going, this infection would soon spread far beyond Blüdhaven’s borders. Someone needed to stop it, but with the entire local public order bribed and oppressed, who in the world could that someone possibly be?

The answer to this question came on one fateful night. 

It was late autumn in Blüdhaven. Days were getting shorter and nights were getting longer. And just as always, when darkness came, the city’s streets quickly emptied out. Shops, stores, supermarkets, cafes, restaurants, movie theatres – everything became closed the very instant the sun dipped below the horizon. The owners of those places were completely careless of the potential extra profit they could lose by calling it a day this early. Everybody just followed their instinct for self-preservation, having only their own personal safety on their mind. Therefore, by the time it was 10:00 PM, Blüdhaven’s panoramic view already resembled some of those ravaged post-apocalyptic cities they usually showed in zombie horror movies where the entire population was utterly wiped out by living dead monsters. The only things to give away that the town was not completely dead were the lights shining through the dwelling houses’ windows and some occasional police sirens ringing here and there. When the city fell asleep, its crime woke up, and it stayed awoke until the next day’s sunrise dispersed it.

That night, though, was not just like any other night in Blüdhaven. Whereas the rampancy of crime had long since become something Blüdhaven’s night life was simply unimaginable without, recently the iniquity taking place here had reached an entirely new level. This was no longer about just some ordinary violent crimes and property crimes committed by street punks under the cover of darkness. In their constantly growing sense of impunity, the local gangsters decided to cross the line they could never even dream of crossing before. That line was an attempted robbery of Blüdhaven Bank.

Regardless of how debilitated was the criminal situation in Blüdhaven, robbing a local bank here or in any other civilized city for this matter could seem as stupid as it was it was pointless. Banks by their very nature were the kind of places that were protected like no other institutions, and even if someone could theoretically have the strength and resources to take out all bank security guards and avoid the numerous anti-intrusion alarm systems, without the knowledge of means of progressing past the whole multitude of various identification systems and electronic control panels that provided access to the bank vault, the effort was pretty much foredoomed. Blüdhaven might have been downtrodden, but it lived in the same age of advanced technologies and computer progress as the whole world around it, where brute force couldn’t always be a solution to everything. But then again, the criminals operating in the city weren’t always relying just on their muscles either.

The night the bank robbery took place, very few people in Blüdhaven could have any idea what was really going on there. The Bank’s exterior façade with its two golden life-sized lions standing on their individual pedestals either side of the building’s entry door and a large golden ‘B’ letter placed within a circle frame above it looked completely innocuous from outside. No strange people could be seen hanging around the building. No sounds of any brawls or gun-fights could be heard. No alarms were ringing and no police cars were rushing to the Bank. Everything seemed peaceful and quiet. However, that outer quietness was only a cloak to what was actually transpiring within the walls of the Bank.

Inside the building, the entire bank security was lying unconscious all over the place, bound and gagged by their ambushers. The alarms, as well as other anti-intrusion systems were deactivated and silent. The numerous heavy bulletproof armored doors blocking the way to the bank vault were all open, allowing a gang of masked armed-to-the-teeth thugs that were the very ones mobbing this place right now to unceremoniously access the room where all the valuable assets of the Bank’s customers were stored. The way how smoothly and carelessly they were handling their task gave a serious reason to doubt whether banks really were as effectively protected as they were believed to be. Either those robbers were high-caliber professionals or there was something else at work here that had ensured their success.

Before it was even midnight, the mobsters were almost done penetrating their way into the bank vault. Only the last steel-reinforced door remained separating them from their target, but unlike all the previous doors which electronic access systems they had managed to hack, this one was not supplied with any automatic locks. While the alarm protecting it was already disarmed, opening a 3.5 feet thick door required some raw power which the robbers had been avoiding to use all along. However, the criminals turned out to be more than equipped to handle that challenge too as one of them took out some advanced laser-like device from his backpack and started melting the door’s steel surface with it. This was going relatively slow, but with all the guards knocked out senseless and no stir having been made so far, time was something those robbers had aplenty. 

As the one with the laser continued doing his part, the others continued walking around the place with their weapons at the ready, keeping ward of the captive security and making sure nothing happened that would put their operation in jeopardy. Over time, though, it became clear that the quiet atmosphere of this crime site would hardly be violated anytime soon, and the robbers relaxed a bit, starting to do some small talk with each other.

“Man, this is almost too easy!” one of them smirked. “I couldn’t have even dreamt of robbing a bank like this back when I was still in Gotham!”

“Me neither,” another one agreed. “That Bat-freak with his snot-nosed goons wouldn’t have even allowed us to get close to any of their dampers.”

“Yeah. Luckily, no costumed clowns can touch us here, in Blüdhaven. This city is ours!” the first one declared jubilantly.

The two thugs shared a good laugh then, which was quickly caught by the rest of their friends idling around nearby. Then another one joined their conversation.

“Guys, guys, let us not attribute everything only to absence of Batman and his vigilante punks on our way,” he took the word. “I mean, what would we do without the help of our 'right friend in the right place'? Am I right, Joey?” he referred to another masked mobster standing next to him and slightly punched him in the shoulder in a friendly gesture.

The rest of the gangsters hurried to shower that Joey guy with more cries of approval as well, but the praised thug didn’t seem to enjoy the ovation and even appeared discomforted by this kind of attention to his persona.

“Hey, would you please quit kidding around at a time like this!” he brushed aside, sounding almost annoyed. “The operation isn’t over yet!”

“Ooh, look who’s nervous,” the thug that had started the whole conversation taunted him. “Isn’t that someone who’s afraid of losing his job at this place?”

That comment sent a wave of chuffy laughter among the entire gang, making Joey awkwardly jolt on his place with fright. 

“Quiet you idiot!” Joey hushed at him. “What if one of the guards hears you?”

“What did you call me, you two-faced slimeball?!” his interlocutor snarled back at him and already made a harsh move forward as if looking to start a fight. 

However, he was quickly restrained by the criminal that had brought up the subject.

“Shut the hell up, both of you!” he attempted to stroke his partners down, still holding back the one that was desperately trying to get his hands on Joey. “Now is neither the time, nor the place for this!”

The restrained thug made a couple more attempts to break free from his friend’s grip, but then calmed down, though still looking aggressive. As the dust settled a bit, the one to have taken it upon himself to defuse the conflict resumed the dialogue.

“Easy there, Lance, no need to be rude here,” he said loyally, his voice, though, still emanating with cynicism. “It’s not like it’s his fault that he doesn’t get paid enough for providing security services to such an important and serious institution, right?”

The robber whose name appeared to be Lance just straightened his messed leather jacket and scoffed derisively,

“Whatever. Not my problem that the guy chose to become a rat and is now being chicken about it.”

This time it was Joey’s turn to snap as he crustily approached Lance after his acrid comment and pointed a pistol right at his gang-mate’s face.

“You know, maybe I should really switch back to my primary duties and blow out the brains of some criminal douche-bag trying to break into the local Bank, huh?” he asked hatefully, his finger trembling on the kill-switch. 

Lance flinched slightly at the sight of a gun muzzle looking directly onto him, clearly not having expected this kind of move on the part of Joey. Luckily, his friend that had restrained him just a moment ago now intervened on his behalf by putting the barrel of his machine gun right before Joey’s face. 

“If you two don’t calm down right now, you’re both gonna get a bullet in your heads,” he threatened the two quarreling robbers, his former jesting tone quickly changing to a serious, bossy one.

Joey and Lance exchanged some conflicting glances until Joey finally decided to listen to the voice of reason and slowly lowered his pistol. Once he did, the one with a machine gun followed his example as well and said,

“One thing Joey’s right about is that this operation isn’t over yet. And until it is, you morons better not do anything that could jeopardize its outcome. After we’re done here, you two may tear each other apart for what I care – I won’t give a shit. But if you fuck anything up before that moment, don't come to me begging to save you from what the Boss is going to do to you for this.”

At the mention of this 'Boss', the two quarreling criminals both shifted uneasily as if having recalled some very unpleasant experience in dealing with him. Then Joey relaxed his posture a bit and took a few short steps away from his opponent. 

“I guess we'll return to this matter a bit later,” he said in a calmer tone, though still looking daggers at Lance.

“We sure will,” the other robber replied menacingly.

The two thugs then dispersed separate ways from each other, leaving their mediator stand in triumph from having so smoothly sorted out the conflict between them. It was vital that this operation they were carrying out here remained unsighted, and all things that could compromise its secrecy like this absurd feud had to be eliminated no later than they occurred. Thankfully, so far no one other than the Bank's captive guards and their own gang knew a thing about what was going on here, and if they could keep it this way until the end of their mission, the police would hardly ever pick their trail afterwards.

However, the mobsters had no idea that there was one more person unknown to them who was aware of their illegal actions. That person was sitting crouched on the rooftop of a neighboring building overlooking the Bank and was watching them through one of the Bank's windows with his night binoculars. He was about six feet tall and had lean, slender, well-built masculine body type like that of a professional male athlete. His hair had raven-black color and was shaggy and unkempt, hanging over his forehead and reaching the back of his neck. His body was all covered in armored unitard made of resistant kevlar material that was almost as black as his hair. He was also wearing blue shoulder pads and a large chest plate emblazoned with a symbol of a blue bird with its wings spread to his shoulders. In addition to this unusual outfit, around the mysterious man's waist was hanging a dark utility belt with various ingenious gadgets and devices attached to it, which purpose was probably known only to the man himself. The enigmatic stranger had a guise of a young man who was maybe just in his early twenties, but there was no telling for sure about it as the only feature of his appearance that could tell his age for sure – his face – was securely concealed by an onyx-black stylized domino mask covering a large facial area around the man's eyes, temples and cheek-bones. The man obviously had an eye toward the idea of concealing his identity, which, together with the rest of his traits, could only be a sign of one thing – he was a vigilante...

The rest of the chapter can be found here: www.fanfiction.net/s/11436814/1/


End file.
